Ethan McSweeny

Playwright Michael Mitnick sat down at his kitchen table late one evening in September 2009 to experiment with a few pages of a play he intended to use as his senior thesis. He finished the next morning with the entire first act of what would later become “Elijah” and would earn him a place in Chautauqua Theater Company’s 2011 New Play Workshop Festival. The play opens at 8 p.m. tonight in Bratton Theater as the first of three new plays making their debut in this season’s festival.

The playwright George Bernard Shaw wrote plays to share his message with a large number of people, an idea that seems old-fashioned in the age of new media. But what if Shaw still chose to write plays in the midst of the 21st century? “Is there something about the experience of live theater that actually is capable of creating more effective and profound change than sitting in front of a television or watching a movie? And I think the answer is probably yes,” Ethan McSweeny said.

Although Ethan McSweeny and Vivienne Benesch have known each other personally and professionally for 15 years, there’s still more to learn. At 2 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy, the two will interview each other about “Art and Soul,” the theme of this week’s Interfaith Lecture Series, as it relates to the theater, in “Soul and Story: Choosing a Life in the Theater.”